Priesting 101: Gemming Your Gear

Gemming your gear has become a way of life for us since the Burning Crusade, but with all the changes to specs and stats how many of us really know what we're doing when gemming our gear?

The aim of this post is to cover off the basics of filling those lovely sockets in that shiny new piece of gear that the big bad you just killed dropped and then go a little deeper and take at look at maximising the benefits you can gain by adding gems to your gear.

Sockets

If your item of armour or weapon has a socket it will be one of 5 types:
blue - hit rating, spell penetration, spirit and stamina
meta;
prismatic - + stats and + resilience;
red - expertise, agility, intellect, strength and parry rating;
yellow - critical strike rating, mastery, dodge rating and resilience rating;

Placing a gem into any non-meta gem socket will increase your stats by the amount the gem grants. Usually  items with sockets have a socket bonus which are useful additional stats awarded when you match up the colour of the gem and the socket (e.g. putting a red gem into a red socket).

In addition to the 3 primary colours gems there are three secondary colors:
green, which will count as a yellow or blue gem;
orange, which will count as a red or yellow gem;
purple, which will count as a red or blue gem;

The secondary colour gems provide a mix of the stats provided by the primary ones but provide two bonuses, one from each of their color sets (e.g. intellect and haste).

Prismatic gems, that match all three colors and either provide +"stats" or resistances.

Meta gems can only be placed in meta sockets which have (upto 4.2) only been seen in head pieces.

To place a gem into a socket right click onto the item of armour (or weapon) and simply drag the gem from your bags by holding down the shift key and right click) into the socket you wish to fill.You can put any colour gem (except a meta gem) into any colour socket but doing so will mean you lose the socket bonus on that item.

Gemming your Priest

With the basics out of the way it's time to dive in at the deep end and look at the gems available to you.

Blue gems - while spirit seems like the perfect choice here you should only drop in a Sparkling Zephyrite/Perfect Sparkling Zephyrite/Sparkling Ocean Sapphire if you are hurting for mana regen in fights, the best value for money gems are Purified Nightstone/Perfect Purified Nightstone/Purified Demonseye as they give intellect and spirit;

Red gems - a real no brainer as the only useful stat we can gain is intellect and it is our most beneficial stat so you'll be placing Brillaint Inferno Rubies or if your budget is real tight Perfect Brilliant Carnellian or Brilliant Carnellian. Of course if you are a jewelcrafter you should be putting your special profession gems in your red sockets so a Brilliant Chimera's Eye should be used in 3 red sockets.

Meta gems - While there are many meta gems you could use, the actual choice of ones useful to you is limited to 4. The Bracing Shadowspirit Diamond gives intellect and reduces threat but if you're needing the reduced threat I'd slap your tanks rather than change your meta, the Burning Shadowspirit Diamond gives intellect and increases critical damage and unless you're ONLY healing through atonement extra critical damage really is a waste which leaves only 2 really viable options.The choice if you're not having mana regen issues is the Ember Shadowspirit Diamond which gives intellect and 2% mana and if you need extra regen a Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond will give you spirit and extra critical healing.

Prismatic gems - Until we need resistances just count this socket as a red one!

Yellow gems - the only socket where holy priests and discipline priests vary is the yellow one. Holy priests love haste and therefore should slot in Reckless Hessonite/Perfect Reckless Hessonite/Reckless Ember Topaz until their haste rating is 915/3964 to give 1 or 2 extra renew ticks and once yu hit one of these figures drop in Artful Hessonite/Perfect Artful Hessonite/Artful Ember Topaz to increase their bonus healing from your Echoes of Light mastery. Disc priests should use Artful Hessonite/Perfect Artful Hessonite/Artful Ember Topaz to boost their shield strength through mastery. Another viable but less useful option is the Potent Hessonite/Perfect Potent Hessonite/Potent Ember Topaz which boosts critical strike rating.